You are not alone if you find yourself using subtitles in films and TV shows at home more now than before. Not only are you getting older, it’s not just because you might not want to maximize your volume for fear of waking up a family of sleep or neighbors. There is a set of physical reasons, the technology why dialogue in modern films and performances has taken back seats in sound design.
The people in Slashfilm took a deep view of why film dialogue was increasingly difficult to understand in recent years. They as far as interviews with people in the industry, find that this problem is the topic of hot buttons when it comes to sound design. Director, actor, and producers all appear to be part of the problem – if someone thinks it is a problem in the first place.
Digital audio stumbles
Sound Designer Thomas Curley (Whiplash, Yellowstone, Documentary Film Now!), Concludes Array problems in one simple quote. “This might fall into the realm of ‘Jurassic Park’,” Curley said, “they spend so much time realizing that they can do all these things, but don’t think about whether they have to do all these things.”
In the past, before digital audio is available, limited options. Before digital audio is available, it is given that dialogue needs to be hard and clear. Because digital audio is introduced, designer sound is given the ability to easily change the element with extreme speed. With the same budget and time, far more changes can be made for a sound mixture in the media provided.
Having more choices is not always a good thing. In this case, having greater control over all sounds means there is more messy with – and more to screw up.
Quality streaming / lost in translation
If you are at home, you get a different sound mixture than you get in a physical cinema. If you watch movies flowing through the internet, you get a different sound mixture than you get with Blu-ray.
Director of Sound Mark Mangini (Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049), confirmed that Blu-ray disk with audio 7.1 is “our full loyalty, 48 kilohertz, 24-bit audio master.” This same audio can be a heart on “certain premium platforms” but, mostly, if you stream movies or shows, you get a degraded experience.
If you stream the show, you get a degraded sound experience mixed after the original sound designer no longer has control. To ensure the whole streaming experience is synchronized (sound and image), the quality must be compressed.
It will be deeper.
Peek at the video above and see what slashfilm appears. Some people in the industry talk about problems and confirm what we have suspected briefly: it really, is really more difficult to understand dialogue in the film now more than before.